Consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices to access online content, such as websites, videos, and photos, as well as mobile and online services, such as electronic messaging, social networking, and the like. With the increasing availability of such mobile content and services, the use of mobile devices in this manner often involves significant amounts of data usage. Data usage is expensive from the perspective of mobile services networks or carriers. As a result, mobile networks and carriers typically pass along the significant costs of regular and heavy data usage to their customers in the form of monthly subscription contracts or pay-as-you-go subscriptions that are often perceived as being expensive for average consumers. Meanwhile, users are often unwilling or unable to pay for an amount of data that they use and/or desire to use. Some users opt out of data plans altogether.
At the same time, mobile devices present prime opportunities for displaying advertisements of different types. Users spend expansive amounts of time looking at and interacting with their mobile device screens. Companies (i.e., advertisers of goods and services) and any other editorial- or sponsored-content providers would therefore benefit from the ability to capitalize on the screen time and engage in more opportunities to advertise. Specially, an average user checks their phone more than ninety times in a day, with a lock screen having significantly higher engagement than any other mobile real estate.
Accordingly, a need exists for systems and methods for enabling various advertising and content displays in exchange for permitting certain levels of mobile data consumption. More generally, a need exists for systems and methods for managing ad-supported mobile data plans.